“Blackness” in French: On Translation, Haiti, and the Matter of Race

Abstract

This essay considers the stakes and the practice of translating Haitian author René Depestre’s prize-winning 1988 novel Hadriana dans tous mes rêves first to the space of metropolitan France and, subsequently, to an anglophone reading public. It looks closely at the stakes of translating to a global readership that most often views Haiti through the lens of irrevocable, demeaningly racialized difference. What does it entail to “carry over” meaning from a Haitian context to a non-Haitian, Euro-francophone audience and, from there, to an Afro-anglophone world? What is the task of the translator within this racially hierarchized transatlantic space?

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